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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22697074">Crimson Obsession</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBait/pseuds/VampireBait'>VampireBait</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>L.A. By Night (Web Series), Vampire: The Masquerade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Other, spoilers for season 4 episode 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:00:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22697074</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBait/pseuds/VampireBait</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Strauss’ thoughts and...feelings?...seeing Eva through the homunculus.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Established Jasper/Eva</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Crimson Obsession</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I think it’s pretty obvious who was looking at them through the creepy hand-eye thing and I wanted to explore what is going through Strauss’ head and his seeming obsession with Eva.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Forty years. A small insignificant collection of decades when compared to the hundreds of years Maximillian Strauss had walked the earth. Yet, he had felt them keenly. This puzzled him. He was not accustomed to feeling anything that might bare even the slightest semblance of human emotion, but seeing Eva again, even expected, his dead heart had quickened, and familiar, obscene, obsession roused the beast within him.</p><p>That night, in the Labyrinth beneath Los Angeles she stood defiant blocking his path as beautiful as he remembered. Even that insolence had not tempered his admiration of his former student, though of course it would be punished in time. He had not been able to take his eyes off her, nor stop the obvious way he took in every inch of her with his searching gaze.</p><p>Strauss had not expected her to slip through his fingers that night. Indeed, she should be safely under his control once more were it not for the Baron of the Valley and his irritating Coterie. Still, Strauss was never one to leave anything to chance. One trap had already been set, several more waited for their time, and still more webs were woven around the hapless Nosferatu that dared to stand at her side. Eva herself, she was dripping with his blood sorcery. It was in her flesh, her hair, her very essence. She could not deny that, it was clear to see in the paler of her flesh. His Mark was upon her, though she struggled vainly against it.</p><p>Eva would return to him. That much was certain. Whether by her own will or by force, he would have her.</p><p>Did she not know the gift his parting words had given her that night? Did she not understand, when Katya returned, that he was giving her a clear path back to him? A safe path she could walk that would deliver her unharmed unto his waiting authority?</p><p>Strauss knew her well enough to know that she would waver but not, perhaps return, still it was something to lessen her confidence in her defection. The Nosferatu’s suffering a welcome if not entirely necessary addition.</p><p>What he had not expected was for her to hide. Eva had vanished, along with her pet. Even the Valley Coterie had seemingly lost all contact. Months had passed with nothing. He was patient to a point, the thought that she might have absconded in some way, escaping the city and his grasp was an increasing torment as time went on. </p><p>Strauss had been productive in that time, though his mind was always on the tantalizing nearness of his prey. It had been a long time since he needed to make the abominations he’d left in the labyrinth, but he had not hesitated for her. The Servitors were there to be used, and he had made good use of them.</p><p>Strauss had put all his pieces in place knowing that if the fugitives remained, they would one-night return to the Labyrinth. As always, his foresight was rewarded.</p><p>He was tending to business as usual when the homunculus established contact. The connection bloomed in his mind as he walked the halls of the manor house in Beverley Hills. The sensation spread, rousing his blood and awakening his beast. Someone had entered the ley-line room. </p><p>Strauss was alone, this suited him perfectly for this moment, he wanted no distractions, he’d waited for this for too long. His office was close enough to slip into. Closing the door and locking it behind him he made himself comfortable on the arm chair in the corner of the room and allowed himself to join his sight with that of his creation.</p><p>His vision turned deep crimson, travelling through the blood sorcery that bound the homunculus to him. He opened his senses and open his mind’s eye to see…darkness.</p><p>In his office Strauss frowned puzzled. A moment passed, he could sense that the creature was being moved and movement was somehow around it, but it was blind to whatever, whoever was interacting with it. A snarl of frustration escaped him, unobserved such things tended to happen. He allowed them in private moments such as these but never where his peers might see him. The beast was clawing at his chest.</p><p>
  <i>It’s her…it must be her…we want her…she is ours…want to see…is it her?...</i>
</p><p>At last light from a simple torch flared along the line of an opening zip. Strauss cursed himself for his stupidity even as he recognized the duffle bag the homunculus had been left in. The chamber beyond became visible and the surface of the mirror, clear once more, but it was the figure crouched in front of the bag that caught his attention. Jasper, the Nosferatu hooded and wary stared back at him. Strauss’ reaction was visceral, the homunculus reacted to it immediately leaping to grasp at his insolent Neonate throat.<br/>
Blood sorcery caught it mid leap.<br/>
Strauss smiled triumphantly his hand already reaching for his phone to summon Garrick.</p><p>
  <i>Yes, yes yes!!… it’s her…she’s ours…we have them!...</i>
</p><p>His thoughts and the beast were indistinguishable as the eye turned, searching for what held it. Strauss’ vision went with it, agonizingly slowly to his mind. The chamber, the wall and then there she was.</p><p>His prey. </p><p>Through the eye of his creation he was not afforded his usual luxury of the red tinted spectacles he favoured, so was reduced to admiring the splendor of her the way others must. The curse he’d bestowed was truly terrible when he was forced to look up her this way. He’d taken her true beauty and kept it for his own, to be seen through the lens that could paint her hair in deep fire, grant her flesh the deceptive pink hue of life and the clothes she wore seem saturated with fresh blood. </p><p>Eva was still beautiful, still ethereal seen this way, but the sanguine-fire of her soul no longer showed for all to see.</p><p>Strauss almost pitied the Nosferatu for what he had never seen. If Jasper admired her now, he would have wept tears of blood if he only knew, if he had only seen her in all her crimson beauty. </p><p>The knife violently ended the vision but it was no matter. The homunculus had served it’s purpose, now the other would ensure she stayed where he could simply go and collect her.</p><p>Strauss rose to his feet composed and calm but for the satisfied smile on his face and the anticipation of the Beast in his chest.</p><p>“Eva, my dear. I’m coming for you...”</p>
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